Modern Landscaping Tips

The best landscape considers the architectural style of your house and integrates that look and ambience into the front-yard design.   A perfect landscape is really about balance and harmony.  For example, never plant clipped and manicured hedges alongside freely growing patches of wildflowers because one will look out of place in this clash of opposites. This set of landscaping tips then basically exhorts homeowners keep landscaping elements in harmony with each other, using considerations of size, shape, color, texture, or other characteristics.

 It’s the perfect landscape that considers the view of and from the house, shade, balance, and harmony with other plants when mapping out where to plant trees.  Which particular area of the landscaped yard to place or plant the trees is important. You can do no wrong by doing a map that specifies where to plant trees in your yard.  Keep the landscape design unified and relatively simple by using only enough variety to sustain bloom and add visual interest throughout the season.  This way you avoid the trap of planting one of everything.
Design your front yard landscape based simply on what the neighbors are doing or what the nearest home improvement store offers.  Most of all, determine how you and your family will use your front yard, what will bring you the most enjoyment, and make deliberate strides toward creating a beautiful yard that you will enjoy for years to come.

Modern landscapes are known for having a clean, minimalist look with no clutter. In contrast to the naturalistic, wavy borders popular in many landscapes, this style emphasizes straight lines and geometric forms which better reflect and relate to the architecture.  Along these lines, you can choose pale colors for your modern landscape, which exude honesty and simplicity.  By using neutral, naturally-colored materials like ipe wood, limestone, weathered steel, concrete and pea gravel, you allow the sleek lines of the architecture and the landscaping to shine.

You may also choose plants with a distinct form.  Japanese boxwood is a favorite because it can be clipped and manipulated into shapes, but spiky plants, soft-textured weeping plants, and anything with a strong visual punch can create the right effect when used skillfully.  And see that one type of plant or one color takes center stage in your landscape design.  That goes well with the simplicity theme.

This theme goes out the window if you pick hot new color trends for any permanent element in the landscape.  Landscape architects note that using a trendy color on tile or other long-lasting features is a quick route to a dated landscape.

Other things to avoid if you want a modern landscape include organic mulch in your garden beds. This is because the neutral color of pea gravel creates a contrast between the foliage and the ground, showcasing the minimal use of plant material.  You may also be tempted to use organic shapes in your pathways, borders or materials.  This is unwise since naturalistic curves do little to enhance the relationship of the landscape with the architecture.  Even when choosing natural materials like stone, cut them into elongated rectangles or create a geometric pattern so they relate to the home and take on a contemporary look.